The Girl and the Stars

“Back!” Arka turned, arms spread, ushering them toward another cavern.

“What is it?” Quina asked, staring but backing away.

“The taint,” Thurin said.

“You didn’t know it was here?” Kao asked Arka, pale in Yaz’s light. “You led us into it?”

“Theus is behind this. I know it.” Thurin backed away slowly as if holding every part of himself tight. “The taint can spread. It can move. Not fast, but faster than the ice moves.”

“It’s followed some fault in the ice or a shift in the heat flow,” Arka said. “I don’t think Theus—”

“You don’t know what he’s capable of!” Thurin was nearly shouting.

“You’re right. I don’t.” Arka held up her hands, peacemaking. “All I know is that it can spread.” She ushered them into a tunnel leading away. Standing to count them past her. “But it almost never does . . .”

Thurin followed Yaz away from the cave with a last glance over his shoulder and a shudder. “A lot of things that never happen have happened today.”

Even as she left, something tugged at Yaz, the feeling that she was being watched an unbearable itch on the back of her neck. She swung about, shaping the star’s light into a beam. It took an effort—a small shard of pain made itself known deep in her head—but the star shone as she asked it to, and she sent its radiance lancing into the chamber from which the taint had spread.

“Arka!” There, exposed in the distance, darkness’s black sheet whipped from them, stood a handful of ragged figures, grime stained, frozen by the light’s sudden interrogation.

“Tainted!” Thurin cried the warning. But the Tainted were already in full retreat, running for the security of the shadows.

The smallest of them lingered, just a moment, casting a malevolent glance over his shoulder, black eyes gleaming, mouth twisted in a rictus of hate. And in that heartbeat before he looked away and sprinted after the rest of the Tainted, Yaz recognised her brother.

“Zeen!” She gave chase with no thoughts for her safety, knowing she could never catch her brother in a footrace.

Thurin brought her crashing to the ground and they struggled briefly before she flung him away, slamming against the nearest ice wall. Yaz found her feet but Zeen was gone. Even the sound of his footsteps had faded into the distance, and into the momentary silence came Thurin’s groaning.

“You stopped me!” She helped him up, her anger warring with concern that she might have done him some serious injury.

“It’s how they trap you!” Thurin rose, clutching his side.

“That was my brother!” Yaz shouted.

“That was a demon wearing your brother like you wear a hide.” Thurin winced and straightened. “They would have trapped you in the black ice and tainted you.”

Arka joined them, the others following. “It’s true. At least you know he’s alive.” She gave an apologetic shrug. “Though it might be better for him if he weren’t.”

Yaz shook off the hand Quina reached tentatively toward her. Her anger still smouldered even though she knew they were right. Zeen was alive and she wasn’t able to drive the taint from him. Not yet. “Come on.” She headed back the way Arka had been leading them, eager now to reach this city.

Even in the tunnel Yaz felt followed, as though the taint might be snaking after them through the ice, and the Tainted following in its wake. Zeen’s hate-twisted face returned to her mind whenever she rested her eyes on any patch of shadow. Thurin, limping beside her without complaint, was her only proof that her brother remained behind those demon-tainted eyes, whole and restorable.

The sensation of being watched returned so strongly when they came into a wider chamber and crossed it that Yaz turned back, asking her star to shine once more, shaping its light into a beam that reached out to where they had entered. Three figures became visible and immediately drew back. Two with spears and behind them someone huge. They lacked the ragged twitchiness of the Tainted.

Arka turned just in time to catch a glimpse. Her face tightened in shock. She spoke quickly and quietly as the others stared at the dark mouth of the tunnel into which the trio had retreated. “That was Pome, I’m sure of it. Was there a gerant? Yes? That would be Bexen, his enforcer. The other one was probably Jalla, a hunska warrior in his faction.”

“What are they doing?” Yaz asked. “Why would they follow us?”

“Quickly!” Arka was already moving. “If they’re following us, way out here near the city, then whatever they want is nothing good. They’re not here to protect us from the Tainted. That’s for damn sure!” Arka had them jogging now. “Pome has always had a brittle pride. You were wrong to push him, Yaz. He knows how to talk, that one. He has many who listen, and he wants Tarko’s position. If you make him look weak then he has to do something to take that strength back again.” She hurried them through a narrow, twisted tunnel, the close confines carrying her voice back to Yaz. “The day he makes his move there will be blood. Pome’s the sort who would rather break something and own the pieces than see another hold it whole. And I don’t mean to let him start with us!”

Yaz hurried on with only Petrick between her and any pursuit. At every moment she expected a spear to come winging out of the darkness. She had seen something in Pome’s eyes, an emptiness that reminded her of the wind and that made her think him capable of anything if he thought he held the upper hand. She hoped that Zeen would keep clear of him. Something told her Pome might not be much of a warrior but she was certain he enjoyed killing when the odds were heavily enough in his favour.

Arka led them at a stiff pace, all of them watchful, no longer trusting the ice, until at last they came to the long slope.

“Here,” Arka said. “The taint can never come here. That at least is for certain. And this is scavenger ground. No warrior would choose to face us here. Warriors they might be but they still fear the hunters.” Even so, she glanced back to where Pome and the others might appear.

“What is it?” Maya seemed more awed by the slope than scared of pursuit.

Arka smiled and gestured ahead of them. “You’re looking at something the Missing walked on.”

It was obvious that the slope couldn’t be the work of nature, but how men or any other could have made so long, broad, and even a surface Yaz couldn’t say. Neither could she explain why the ice hadn’t simply scoured it away.

The ice-free slope led down across a rocky hillside at an even gradient, sometimes cutting into the bedrock, sometimes rising above it on a different kind of stone. About halfway down, two black pillars flanked the rampway, each taller than a man. Yaz could only imagine they held their own heat and that the advancing ice that had erased the city simply melted around them, leaving them unscathed in their own bubbles.